Report: Plouffe in, Axelrod out at White House in 2011

Washington (CNN) – President Obama is planning to bring former campaign manager David Plouffe onto the White House staff at the beginning of January to work alongside senior adviser David Axelrod for a brief time before Axelrod moves on to help run the re-election campaign, according to a senior administration official and a senior Democratic strategist familiar with the plan.

The sources added that Axelrod is now planning to leave his White House post as soon as immediately after the State of the Union address, which is an earlier departure date than originally expected and could be part of a new round of departures at the White House.

While there have been reports suggesting Plouffe will directly replace Axelrod, the working plan right now is actually for the two veterans of the 2008 campaign to work together for at least a short period as sort of a handoff, as the White House continues to reshape itself to deal with a Republican-controlled House and a shrunken Democratic majority in the Senate.

“I think there will be some overlap,” the senior administration official told CNN about Axelrod and Plouffe working together next January.

While Axelrod is known as a master strategist he is the first to admit that he’s disorganized, while Plouffe’s key strength demonstrated during the 2008 campaign was crafting a plan and implementing it with meticulous precision.